Medical marijuana: locally grown and smoked

June 16, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Volunteer and patient Marla James works the front desk at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. James, who was disabled by a flesh-eating bacteria, prefers to use marijuana rather than Oxycontin to medicate her pain. She has become a local advocate for the dispensing of medical marijuana. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Glass containers of various types of marijuana line a counter at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. According to the dispensary's website, Louie XIII costs $20 a gram. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Glass containers of the various types of marijuana line a countertop at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. Once a client is checked in the front office they may enter the dispensary to have their prescription filled. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Volunteer and patient Marla James, left, works the front desk at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. James checks in patients before they can proceed to the dispensary behind a locked door. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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After filling his prescription at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach, patient Jonathan Cayer stops to chat on his way out the front door. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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After an amount of marijuana was weighed out, a patient's prescription is filled at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Liquid versions of medical marijuana are available to patients at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. These products are for clients who do not wish to smoke the marijuana. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Customer Julian Ramirez, 30, of Long Beach, has his prescription for medical marijuana filled by Patient Med-Aid office manager Sheren Troung. Ramirez said he has used medical marijuana to successfully reduce his stress and insomnia. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Volunteer and patient Marla James works the front desk at Patient Med-Aid, a recently closed marijuana dispensary in Sunset Beach. James, who was disabled by a flesh-eating bacteria, prefers to use marijuana rather than Oxycontin to medicate her pain. She has become a local advocate for the dispensing of medical marijuana. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Marijuana: From leaves to buds and THC

SANTA ANA – On the quiet side street outside the warehouse, possession of marijuana can result in a fine or possibly jail time.

Yet hidden behind its industrial walls, a sea of plants bloom, their crystallized buds glimmering in the flickering yellow light waiting to be sold legally – well, almost.

Citing state law, some Orange County residents say they're legally growing the drug – sometimes on a large scale – as well as importing it from Northern California to supply local patients with medical marijuana.

The producers work within guidelines that have transformed what were once seen as drug deals into nonprofit donations, distributing "buds" to patients with ailments that range from anxiety to terminal cancer. Other users simply may be abusing the system.

The state-legal industry is in a constant state of confusion for lawmakers, growers, city officials and patients alike.

One Santa Ana warehouse holds about $20,000 in product once the plants are dried and sold. Chris – who did not want to give his last name, fearing federal prosecution – has been growing marijuana for 10 years, first in San Bernardino then Orange County.

Chris said that California has become more appealing to marijuana cultivators nationally because of the lax state laws.

"People from all over the country are coming to California to grow this stuff," he said. "People are calling it 'The Green Rush.'"

Medical marijuana patients in Orange County get their products primarily from local indoor grow rooms, which operate year-round, or seasonally from outdoor Northern California gardens.

Humboldt County is known for a marijuana industry that thrives due to officials who look the other way and the generations of pot growers who have lived there since the days of the hippie movement.

Northern California marijuana comes to Orange County in two large waves, supplying the area with hundreds of pounds of pot, one in the spring and the other, bigger harvest coming in October, or as industry folks say: "crop-tober." It's during these times of year that local growers have to sell their products at cheaper prices because the market is oversaturated.

AN ASSEMBLY LINE

The Santa Ana greenhouse mimics an assembly line. Upstairs a small room concealed by black tarps is where upstart plants are nurtured.

The humid room contains several small plants in various stages. The three large plants that dominate the left corner of the room are "mother plants." Instead of starting with marijuana seeds, the mother plant provides cuttings.

"Seeds are tricky because you have to get them shipped from places like Amsterdam and India," Chris said. "Shipping seeds is technically smuggling because pot is federally illegal and U.S. mail is a federal service. (Cloning) saves me some felonies."

After spending two weeks within the humid "sponge" room, the cutlets spend another six weeks upstairs while they begin to bloom. The immature plants receive between 18 to 24 hours of light per day.

When the plants come of age, they are taken to the white room downstairs. Plants are tracked by strain and age. The youngest plants are placed to the left and rotated to the right as they mature. The plants stay within the room from eight to 10 weeks.

Before the buds can be smoked they are extracted from the plants are hung upside down for two weeks before being put in a Mason jar for another two weeks to cure. "Some people sell them right after they've dried, but I like to let them cure in their own goodness," Chris said.

The Santa Ana warehouse produces one to three pounds of marijuana every two to four weeks – that's 12 to 14 harvests per year.

LEGAL DRUG DEAL

"Collectives," "cooperatives" and "caregivers" have taken the place of street dealers as distributors of marijuana in California under guidelines released by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown in August 2008.

Cooperatives of patients and caregivers are required to register as nonprofit corporations, which allows for salaries for workers and reimbursement of expenses.

"I'm not allowed to make money off marijuana, but I'm allowed to be paid for my time and reimbursed for the money I used to grow it," Chris said.

There are gray areas that allow distributors to provide marijuana to patients in Orange County, but the rules are vague and local law enforcement officials continue to prosecute growers and dispensaries.

"We as voters approved a bill that is supposed to allow medicine to get to the sickest patients in California or patients that would benefit from the usage of medical cannabis," Santa Ana attorney Chris Glew said. "The thing is, lawyers can't even agree on what this law means. It's debated in the courts every day; the definitions are constantly changing of what is a collective, what is a caregiver, what is permissible, are reimbursements allowable."

PEDDLING POT

Many patients looking for pot turn first to Weedmaps.com, a website that tracks dispensaries and delivery services in regions around the country where medical marijuana is legal.

Listings feature menus with marijuana strains – an eighth of an ounce of Green Crack, for example, goes for around $50 – as well as photos, specials for first-time patients and reviews where patients discuss customer service, selection and which collectives offer the "dankest buds," in the words of one user.

About 2,000 subscribers use the website to distribute or purchase medical marijuana, said co-founder Justin Hartfield, a Laguna Beach native who moved the business from Newport Beach to Denver in November.

"It's like what Yelp is doing for the (restaurant) industry," he said. "It's made the industry more transparent."

The website does not vet dispensaries or patients – that's left to locals.

At the former Pacific Coast Highway location of Patient Med-Aid in Sunset Beach, front-desk volunteers scan doctor recommendations and driver's licenses of first-time patients into a computer system before they gain access to the room stocked with medication.

"It's not a place for teenagers to hang out," said Marla James, a collective volunteer and medial marijuana advocate. "It's a place where we care for sick people."

REGULARS GREETED BY NAME

Regulars, who range from young men to elderly women, are greeted by name.

Some of the patients who are part of the collective are terminally ill, James said, and others look to medical marijuana to treat ailments such as chronic pain or post traumatic stress disorder without the side effects or dependency of prescription medication.

There are people abusing the system, she admits, but the responsibility for that rests on the state medical board to discipline doctors: "Not everyone looks sick. If a doctor writes them a recommendation, we have to go by the doctor's orders."

A man in his early 20s carrying a backpack with a Rastafarian flag patch walks in and shows a crumpled doctor's recommendation to James.

"The C4 is bomb," he said, naming a strain of marijuana.

She points out his recommendation is expired.

"I'm not showing you in our system," she said.

He stammers he may have left his current recommendation in his car and leaves. He doesn't return.

Those working at the collective have to constantly say vigilant, James said. The collective has a good relationship with police, she said, and no money or marijuana products are kept in the storefront overnight.

The collective had been operating on borrowed time, however. Huntington Beach does not issue business licenses to medical marijuana dispensaries, and Patient Med-Aid's managers agreed to close up shop from its location in the commercial area by June 1. James said they're still delivering to their sickest patients and hope to reopen soon in an industrial area of the city.

"We've been working with the city," she said. "It's just kind of a wait and see thing."

For the sickest and least experienced medical marijuana patients, James said dispensaries are critical to providing medication – whether it's a topical ointment for arthritis or a marijuana candy to fight the nausea of a chemotherapy patient, she said.

"It's convenience and it's safety," she said. "We don't want patients buying out of a back alley like we used to do."

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